Sunday, June 8, 2008

hearings on Contract for Excellence -- make your voice heard!

Hearings will be held this week in the Bronx and Brooklyn on the city's use of the additional state funding for our schools under the heading of the Contract for Excellence (or C4E) -- supposed to be used in five specific areas that research has shown to improve student achievement, including class size reduction. Queens and Manhattan are slated for the week after. The full schedule is below.

Speaker sign-in will begin at 6:00pm, and each will be given 2 minutes to speak. Written comments will also be accepted through 6/27/08 at:contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov. For flyers in English and other languages are here.

Please come and make your voice heard -- about the overcrowding at your school, the DOE's proposed budget cuts, or anything else that undermines your child's opportunity to receive a quality education. Transcripts from these hearings are posted online and are provided directly to the Commissioner of Education Richard Mills; this is one of the few opportunities that NYC parents have to speak out and communicate directly with someone with the authority to command the otherwise unaccountable educrats at Tweed how they should be spending our taxpayer money.

I have prepared a new briefing sheet on the the city's dismal record on class size since the state passed legislation last year mandating smaller classes; it also has links to more information on your schools' class sizes, the city's current class size proposal, and what the state should require in place of the city's transparently imaginary plan.

Rather than use a penny towards a realistic, "targeted" class size reduction plan, the DOE is leaving it up to principals to use their allotment of "fair student funding" to lower class size, if they so choose -- ignoring that many of them have neither the space nor the ability to cap enrollment to make this possible. Moreover, the administration has no intention of supporting them in their effort to do so.

Instead, the DOE plans to use $20 million of the C4E funds to "expand" their unproven merit pay scheme for teachers, along with many other questionable priorities.